The Cavender Diary

My love of plumbing pipe has very few limits. Last year, we used it to make a rolling log holder for our den that just swept the internets.

Maybe it’s because I am drawn to loft-like urban spaces with exposed brick, huge factory windows, and cement floors. Plumbing pipe just fits in these kinds of places.

With a 10 foot ceiling, concrete floors, and an exposed brick wall (actually the back of the fireplace), our garage is the most loft-like part of the house….and the perfect place to utilize our love of this inexpensive utilitarian material.

We already showed the plumbing pipe we hung on the wall to hang tools. Here are a few more pipe projects that we did to “Amp Up” our garage functionality.

Coat Rack Pucks

Plumbing pipe is oiled, so it’s easier to thread together. I’m pretty sure that we don’t want that oil staining all our nice coat and hats. To remove the oil we washed all our pipe parts with Fast Orange hand cleaner.

This stuff is just amazing at removing grease and oil. My brother Josh introduced me to it after working on my greasy, oily car. It has just the right amount of grit and a pleasant citrus smell. I picked some up at an auto parts store. Pretty sure it was about 2 dollars.

For coat/hat pucks we used a flange, a 1″ threaded connector, and a cap.

We just screwed them together,

Because they aren’t going to hold anything really heavy, we just attached them with screws.  We’d use butterfly screws if they needed the extra support.

Now we have a convenient place next to the backdoor for coats, hats…and a dog leash.

Under Cabinet Hanger Bar

Space is a premium in our garage. Because the washer and dryer are in there, it only seems fitting that our unused clothes hangers would end up there as well.

The underside of the cabinets is the absolute perfect place to keep them. Close by, and out of the way at the same time.

For this project we used elbows, as well as flanges, and 1 inch completely threaded connectors (because we wanted the pipe to be as close to the underside of the cabinet as possible).

Plumbing pipe comes in a pretty big assortment of precut sized, but unfortunately, 12 inch increments aren’t always the sizes that we need.

Not a problem, the Big Box stores will cut it for you, and rethread the new cut end, while you wait. Any size at all.

Here’s Raul cutting my pipe at Home Depot. He always helps me with my issues. I can’t be sure, but sometimes I think he tries to avoid me. I can’ t imagine why…….I’m his best customer.

Again, we just screwed this on with screws to the underside of our upcycled cabinet.

Loft Space Ceiling Pipes

I’ve always loved the way plumbing pipes hang from the ceiling in industrial lofts.

I used these galvanized pipes for curtain rods in my last house, and had a few left over that didn’t fit anywhere in this house.  So hanging from the garage ceiling it is.

Because they are hanging straight down, and likely to hold heavy things, we used butterfly screws for this project.

First we connected all our pipes and pipe fittings, knowing that we wanted a 4 inch drop from the ceiling.

With Jamie on the scaffolding, and me on top of the refrigerator, we held our 16 feet of connected pipes to the ceiling and marked where the holes in the flanges were.

Here’s a tip we’re glad to pass on.

You know those plastic liners that nurseries sell to put under house plants? They are perfect for collecting dust when drilling holes in the ceiling.

Simply drill a hole in the middle and slip the drill bit through it.

Just like so ……

Now when I drill my ceiling holes for the butterfly screws, all the dust and drywall bits collect in the plastic liner.

Brilliant. I know, I know…and only about 75 cents.

We slipped the butterfly screws through the holes in the flanges….

…and tapped them into the corresponding holes in the ceiling. Then we tightened all the butterfly screws with the drill.

We had enough left over pipe (a 6 foot pipe and 2 – 5 foot pipes) to hang on the entire left side of the garage, over the new tool cabinets.

Now all that stuff we had covering the floor…….has somewhere to hang.

That’s Way, More, Much Better in our books……

even if it does remind us of Bennigan’s……

(sigh)